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Topic: Cryptocurrency (Read 20311 times)

If the software has a significant cost or requires an significantly above average system, then its a bad idea.

It requires a significantly above average system. The processing is done on GPUs, and it is so computationally intensive that it will wear out or burn up the hardware unless you use some robust cooling system.

Nowadays, there are so many different cryptocurrencies going that the opportunity cost cuts significantly into your profit potential.

LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid by more than 10 percent on Wednesday, as investors sold the cryptocurrency after a warning by JPMorgan (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon that it “is a fraud” and will eventually “blow up”.

Bitcoin, the original and still the biggest cryptocurrency, has been on a tear in recent months, hitting a record high just below $5,000 at the start of September after a more than fivefold increase in price since the start of the year.

But bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been falling since early last week, when China banned the issuance of new digital coins for fundraising purposes - a phenomenon known as initial coin offerings, or ICOs.

ICOs have fueled a rapid ascent in the value of all cryptocurrencies, from about $17 billion at the start of the year - with bitcoin making up around 90 percent of that - to a record high close to $180 billion at the beginning of September, of which bitcoin represented less than half.

More at the link, I have been skeptical of it's quick rise and have expected something like this for a bit now. Not sure it will go away or if this is just a small set back but don't own any or plan to by on the dip.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCChina will stop all trading from Sept. 30, it said on Thursday, as regulators crack down on the nascent cryptocurrency sector in a bid to stamp out potential financial risks.

China has boomed as a cryptocurrency trading location in recent years, as investors and speculators flocked to domestic exchanges that formerly allowed users to conduct trades for free, boosting demand.

BTCChina, one of China’s largest bitcoin trading platforms, which also runs an international exchange out of Hong Kong, will stop registration of new users from Thursday, it said on its official microblog.

“We will stop all trades on the digital trading platform starting Sept. 30,” it added. Its co-founder, Bobby Lee, told Reuters the move would not affect trading on the BTCC international exchange, however.

The price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tumbled after the news. By 1233 GMT, bitcoin was down 18 percent on BTCChina, at 20,510 yuan.

On U.S. exchange Bitstamp, it was down more than 6 percent at $3,632, down from its Sept. 2 record high of nearly $5,000.

BTCChina said its decision was based on a Sept. 4 directive from Chinese authorities that expressed concern over investment risks involved in cryptocurrencies and which ordered a ban on initial coin offerings

I don't see the point due to the fact that country's money is getting to be more and more cyber in nature. I use electronic transfers for 90%+ of my transactions. I don't need a cyber currency because I already have on in US dollars.

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common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Yeah me neither, for me it solves no problems I have with money. I know it's gotten more popular but don't think most people who use it realize how open it is. There are companies now using ledger data for marketing. Radio lab had a good podcast on it, not for me.

While I still am not a fan, could have doubled your money in the last month. I first heard about it in a tech podcast in 2014 and the host bought I think like a hundred or thousand dollars worth. Kinda wish I would have done that then. Oh well, Is still stand by my earlier points. I don't think a cryptocurrency in totally fucked, I just don't think bitcoin is the one and for me there is no draw in my day to day life.

While I still am not a fan, could have doubled your money in the last month. I first heard about it in a tech podcast in 2014 and the host bought I think like a hundred or thousand dollars worth. Kinda wish I would have done that then. Oh well, Is still stand by my earlier points. I don't think a cryptocurrency in totally fucked, I just don't think bitcoin is the one and for me there is no draw in my day to day life.

I mean, if I'd bought gold in 1999 or Bitcoin in 2013, I would be paying off student loans and putting a down payment on the ranch. If I'd bought Bitcoin just before Mt. Gox I might have lost everything. The nature of volatile investments is that there are big gains and big losses.

The massive gains only make me more cautious, since it smells of another big pump. You can trade Bitcoin futures now, so that's even more hedging against it. Bitcoin IMO will either stabilize or slowly die. Cryptocurrency in general has promise though.

I don't see the point due to the fact that country's money is getting to be more and more cyber in nature. I use electronic transfers for 90%+ of my transactions. I don't need a cyber currency because I already have on in US dollars.

A major reason why people use cryptocurrency is that it doesn't require a clearing house. Your ordinary electronic transfers do. It's true that this fact attracts a lot of paranoid or shady people to crypto, but many like it out of principle (anarchists / libertarians / privacy advocates).

I don't see the point due to the fact that country's money is getting to be more and more cyber in nature. I use electronic transfers for 90%+ of my transactions. I don't need a cyber currency because I already have on in US dollars.

Cryptocurrencies are popular with anti-government types, who think that government manipulating the money supply is a bad thing and on general principle don't want the government to know how much money they have or what they spend it on, and it's popular with people who deal in illegal goods & services. The other segment are speculators who just buy it in hopes of selling it for more.

While I still am not a fan, could have doubled your money in the last month. I first heard about it in a tech podcast in 2014 and the host bought I think like a hundred or thousand dollars worth. Kinda wish I would have done that then. ...

If you had put your entire savings into Bitcoin a year ago, or several years ago, you'd be filthy rich now. If you'd bought Apple back at the beginning, you'd be filthy rich now. If you'd bought Tesla in 2010 you'd have multiplied your money ten-fold. Or, if you'd bought any of the other equally-risky investments you'd have lost your shirt. In hindsight we know what we should have bought. But those investments were competing for your capital with thousands of other, indistinguishable opportunities, all of which have gone bust.

I bought a few shares of Tesla back in 2011 because I really liked my Roadster. I didn't put a large amount in it because at that time there was no way of knowing if the company would succeed or go bust. I thought they'd succeed, but I was not willing to, as Hermann the German says in Pushkin's The Queen of Spades "... risk the necessary in pursuit of the superfluous." I knew a guy who did just that and it paid for his Tesla Model S. I have no regrets because I'm not that kind of risk-taker.

Same with Bitcoin. It sure would be nice to have bought at $300 and sold at $5,000 but getting wiped out was just as likely, if not more so. Gamblers lose more often than they win, unless they have inside information or they own the casino.

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Daniel----------------"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think long and hard before starting a war."-- Otto von Bismarck

About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management. (Brown is a contributor to the Bloomberg Prophets online column.) What’s more, the whales can coordinate their moves or preview them to a select few. Many of the large owners have known one another for years and stuck by bitcoin through the early days when it was derided, and they can potentially band together to tank or prop up the market.

About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management. (Brown is a contributor to the Bloomberg Prophets online column.) What’s more, the whales can coordinate their moves or preview them to a select few. Many of the large owners have known one another for years and stuck by bitcoin through the early days when it was derided, and they can potentially band together to tank or prop up the market.

I believe I read that Satoshi Nakamoto (whoever he is) alone owns more than 1 million Bitcoins. That means that at current prices he owns $15.7 billion in Bitcoins. Of course he couldn't cash out that stake without crashing the value of the currency (and, indeed, he hasn't touched his stash in years).

« Last Edit: December 08, 2017, 03:09:10 PM by The Latinist »

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I would like to propose...that...it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. — Bertrand Russell

About 40 percent of bitcoin is held by perhaps 1,000 users; at current prices, each may want to sell about half of his or her holdings, says Aaron Brown, former managing director and head of financial markets research at AQR Capital Management. (Brown is a contributor to the Bloomberg Prophets online column.) What’s more, the whales can coordinate their moves or preview them to a select few. Many of the large owners have known one another for years and stuck by bitcoin through the early days when it was derided, and they can potentially band together to tank or prop up the market.

I believe I read that Satoshi Nakamura (whoever he is) alone owns more than 1 million Bitcoins. That means that at current prices he owns $15.7 billion in Bitcoins. Of course he couldn't cash out that stake without crashing the value of the currency (and, indeed, he hasn't touched his stash in years).

If I owned $15 billion in Bitcoin, and if I could sell and even get one billion U.S. dollars, I'd do it this minute. With a billion dollars I could give 90% of it to good causes and still do everything I could possibly imagine wanting to do in the way of travel and activities and do it with a high-priced companion.

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Daniel----------------"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think long and hard before starting a war."-- Otto von Bismarck

The problem is that if Satoshi cashed out even a fraction of his bitcoins it would send ripples throughout the currency. A huge part of its stability has been that he has owned a large fraction of the coins and has not touched them. That fraction is growing smaller and smaller (he now owns only about 6.5% of all bitcoins), but I think that if he started moving them there would be a lot of people questioning what he knew that they didn't.

It is also possible that Satoshi lost his private key or even intentionally destroyed it for just that reason: his stake was only ever meant to be a stabilizing influence and he never intended to use it.

Remember, too, that Satoshi hasn't been heard from since the earliest days of Bitcoin. For all we know, he's dead and his key died with him.

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I would like to propose...that...it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. — Bertrand Russell